Thoughts on professionalism

Today was my day 'off' after a long stint of being 'on'. Melissa and I awoke around 8:30 (I did my daily raid of the raspberry bushes out back) and walked up Mt Tabor. It's beautiful up there...lots of joggers and picnic-ers and a sweet view of the Burnside bridge and downtown Portland. After we showered, we took the bus to the Hawthorne district and ate brunch and then patronized our fav coffee place, the Sound Grounds. I always have good musical experiences at the Sound Grounds. When I was there previously, they were playing Paul Simon's "Rhythm of the Saints," one of my favorite albums. And today, after an hour or so of some weird modern jazz nonsense, they put on the Indigo Girls self-titled album which brought back a flood of memories from high school when I listened to that album incessantly. To this day, practically one of the only songs I can play on the guitar (not included your good-ole' Evangelical praise songs) is "Closer to Fine."

I made it back to Nehalem in time for a delicious dinner of vegetarian tacos. Mmm. After dinner each night, we have Community Time which consists of a reading from Jean Vanier's (the founder of l'Arche communities) Community and Growth. If l'Arche had a rule (like the Benedictine rule or the Trappist rule), it would be this book. Tonight, we read about the nature of 'living with' the least of these, and how living with is far different from simply working with.

Vanier writes, "Our focal point of fidelity at l'Arche is to live with people who have a handicap, in the spirit of the Gospel and the Beatitudes. 'To live with' is different from 'to do for'. It doesn't simply mean eating at the same table and sleeping under the same roof. It means that we create relationships of gratuite, truth and interdependence, that we listen to our people, that we recognize and marvel at their gifts, and particularly their openness to God and their holiness. The day we become no more than professional workers and educational therapists is the day we stop being l'Arche -- although of course 'living with' does not exclude this professional aspect."

Ah, I love these thoughts. This is truly l'Arche - a bunch of ragtag, professional and nonprofessional, young and old individuals coming together to experience community. The assistants here do not have Masters degrees in disability theory. Some have social work backgrounds, but most don't. Few, if any, have interacted with the developmentally disabled previous to l'Arche. We are people at different stages in our lives -- graduated or current students, senior citizens, married couples, developmentally disabled adults -- who have come together to experience true togetherness. You don't need to be a professional anything in order to brush teeth, hand out pills, patiently listen, go on a walk, ask for forgiveness. This was a lie I believed before coming to l'Arche, that I was someone incapable of caring for others without a professional title.

The truth is, professionalism or not, I am incapable of caring without the Holy Spirit, without the model of Jesus, without the acceptance and forgiveness of my ugliest sins. We have all been incapacitated by the lie of professionalism, the lie of autonomy, the lie of the individual. We need each other like plants need rain. Without community, we will wither and die. Our nation is ill, stuffed full of these lies that only serve to dismantle us piece my piece until nothing is left but human shells, devoid of souls. This is beginning to sound morbid and a bit dramatic, but we can see it happening all around us. Read the news. Observe those alone in their cars in a sea of morning traffic. Listen to the silence of a packed elevator. Notice how infrequently you see your next-door-neighbor. It's around us. It's in us. And we need to stop believing the lies.

On that glorious note, I am going to continue my day off my sitting on the porch to watch the sunset. Erin is humming along to Mariah Carey in her room. Marilyn is pacing in the living room where Melissa is playing the Indigo Girls on guitar. Adam is singing loudly in the shower. Welcome to l'Arche.